


Under Orion

by lq_traintracks (lumosed_quill), traintracks



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, Infidelity, M/M, Sibling Incest, Watersports
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-09
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2018-01-07 02:53:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1114628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumosed_quill/pseuds/lq_traintracks, https://archiveofourown.org/users/traintracks/pseuds/traintracks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bill and Charlie have always had a unique relationship.  When Charlie comes home to the Burrow to be best man for his brother Bill's wedding, he has to face all the ways that relationship might never be the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under Orion

**Author's Note:**

> Written for perverse_bang.

 

  
Charlie looked into the mirror and ran a hand over his shorn head, the bristles of what was left of his hair tickling his palm. He sighed and ran the hot water, letting the steam warm his face. He lathered with the brush, picked up the razor he'd brought home with him, and began shaving, taking short efficient downward strokes.

It had been Bill who'd taught him how, and Bill probably owed his expertize to their dad and his Muggle obsession.

It had become a habit for Charlie and something he took the time to do when he could. Shaving calmed him. Shaving was meditative, a slow, thoughtful action. Some combination of the warm, moist air; the repetitive motion; the scraping sound made Charlie feel in control of his universe and simultaneously small and insignificant.

Right now, his universe was spinning quite out of his control. Because Bill was getting married tomorrow. Because he was home and the memories crowded into his brain and threatened to suffocate all that he'd created away from this house, away from his family. Away from his brother.

He pulled the razor down his skin and felt the drag of it, the way it took the stubble away clean and left him tingling. Bill had been the one to teach him to do this. Bill had been the instigator of so many firsts in his life.

Charlie wiped the fog of steam from the mirror, leaned forward and looked into his own eyes, and remembered.

~

 

"It's time," Bill whispered as he took Charlie's elbow.

Charlie nodded, suddenly breathless, and ran after his brother, up to their shared room, their boots pounding on the stairs so hard Mum yelled from down below, "Stop that racket! You'll wake the baby!"

It was called Punch Your Privates, and it was their private game. A game which, of course, Bill invented. Even then, they'd been aware enough never to play out in the open. At some point during the day -- between These Aren't Sticks; They're Wands and chores and things -- Bill would say, "It's time." And Charlie knew to follow.

They ignored their mum, stomping up the stairs and then running into the room and slamming the door. They faced each other, panting.

Charlie always took the first hit. He always took most of them. And he wanted to. He had never been able to see how it could even be any other way. He only ever hit Bill's privates when he felt that if he didn't, his whole jig would be up -- that Bill would know, without a doubt, that he actually liked it. Besides, his brother wanted to smack him in his bits, so that's what Charlie wanted, too. And why not, when it only hurt a little and it left that faint tingle after? When Bill never (well, hardly ever) hit too hard? When it left them both laughing and rolling around on the floor with Charlie only pretending to try and get away from his brother's swatting hand?

When sometimes it was so good, Charlie wanted to weep with happiness and he couldn't even say why.

Bill grabbed him, shoved his hand down between Charlie's legs, squeezed hard, and then shoved him away again. Charlie fell to the ground, moaning and laughing, and Bill fell on top of him. Charlie squirmed under Bill's weight, felt Bill's heavy breath on the back of his neck, barely lifted his hips to accidentally give Bill an advantage, a place to sneak his hand. Bill found the opening, and Charlie struggled only so much as he had to, and his whole body convulsed when Bill's hand once again closed around him and squeezed.

"You'll never win," Bill taunted him once he'd won a few times. Winning was what Bill said it was, and Charlie never thought to question that. There was no need.

"Dinner!" Mum yelled from below.

Bill smiled at Charlie there on the floor at his feet. "Race you downstairs."

"And no running!" Mum called.

Charlie nodded, and Bill gave him a five second head start.

 

 

 

"What do you want to play, Bill?" Charlie asked. It was Spring, and the weather was good, and they'd been playing outside all day, and while Charlie loved playing outside and the deep tan he'd gotten attested to that, he found he missed their indoor games.

It had been months since they'd played their indoor games. Bill never seemed to want to anymore.

"It's almost time for supper," Bill told him. "How about You Can't Climb My Tree?"

Charlie harrumphed and kicked at the dirt with his new trainers. New to him. They had been Bill's. "I'm seven now," Charlie said. "I can climb any tree you can."

Bill made a face at him, and Charlie giggled. He shoved Bill, but Bill didn't shove him back.

"Come on. Let's help Mum. The babies are colicky again, and she'll yell at us to help anyway, so we might as well offer."

"What's colicky?"

"It's turning into little wailing demons."

"Not really," Charlie said apprehensively.

"No, not really. Plus Mum says they'll grow out of it. Now come on."

Charlie followed his brother's footsteps into the house, wondering what he had to do to get Bill to want to shove him again.

That night, very late, it happened.

They'd gone to bed as usual. Mum had tucked Charlie in but not Bill who was nine and too old now. The moon rose through the window and made shapes of things. Charlie's stuffed dragon flapped its wings and yawned, and Charlie fell asleep to dreams of flying.

He woke to the weight on him, pinning him down. For a split second, Charlie almost struggled. But it was just Bill, not a monster. Bill was on top of him. Bill was taking Charlie's arms and raising them so they rested on his pillow, and he was pinning his wrists there.

Charlie relaxed completely. He let his body fill with the joy of being touched again.

It was a surprise when Bill let go of one of his arms; Charlie would have been content to just be held down like that, Bill's familiar breath in his face. But Bill let go, took both Charlie's wrist in his one, bigger hand, and reached the other between them. He touched Charlie's penis.

Charlie jolted, a bubble of laughter rising up in him.

"Quiet," Bill warned him.

Charlie nodded. He would do whatever Bill said. He bit his lip and hardly even breathed (hardly could with Bill on top of him), and Bill put his hand inside Charlie's pajama bottoms and started...

Charlie bit his lip so hard it hurt.

His brother started petting his penis.

It was better than anything ever. Better than Punch Your Privates. Because it was slow and his brother breathed in his face and was so warm and strong and it was all tingling, no pain. Charlie hadn't known he could feel quite so wonderfully good. He closed his eyes, relaxed completely, and before he knew it, he was peeing in his brother's hand.

"I'm sorry -- I'm sorry!" he whispered urgently. Only babies peed the bed!

But Bill didn't get cross with him. "Shh," he hushed. He didn't move. He still held Charlie down and stroked his leaking penis, and Charlie breathed hard under him. Then Charlie watched, awed and scared and ashamed and happy beyond happiness, as Bill let go of him only to sit up enough to fish out his own penis. Bill was breathing funny, too. It didn't occur to Charlie that he wouldn't want what was about to happen. On the contrary, he could hardly wait.

Bill's penis was bigger than his, and Charlie stared at it, the wet bedding beginning to cool beneath him but his brother's weight, warm and reassuring on top. Charlie didn't flinch, only shuddered under the warm gush, as Bill aimed his penis down at Charlie's body, and peed on him on purpose.

 

 

 

"You get a room to yourself now," Mum whispered to him as if this was a good thing.

Charlie stood brave on the train platform as the Hogwarts Express pulled away with his big brother in it. He was nine after all, not a little boy anymore. Bill had been terribly excited, and Charlie didn't want to be the one to spoil things for him. (Plus, he didn't want to cry in front of the older boys and girls and look like a ninny.) So, Charlie smiled and waved as the train pulled away.

Charlie supposed having a room to himself was better than sharing with Puking Percy, allergic to his own skin.

But that night, with Bill gone, his bed empty, Charlie cried. He would have even liked to say he cried himself to sleep, but he couldn't even manage that. Sometime near dawn, he crawled into Bill's bed and snuggled down under the covers. He snuck his hand into his trousers and pet his penis. It didn't feel the same as all the times Bill had done it to him. But after a few more sniffles, his hand slowed to a stop, and he finally slept, the smell off his brother's hair like a lullaby, helping him feel a little less alone.

Those two years -- the ones with Bill away at Hogwarts, before Charlie himself was old enough to go -- were the hardest. They were punctuated by Bill's holiday returns, of course, and therefore bearable. But while Bill hugged him hard when they met after a long absence, it seemed much more difficult to get him to remember what things should be like.

Bill would ruffle his hair and throw his napkin at Charlie across the dinner table, but he didn't readily come into Charlie's bed at night anymore. Charlie wondered if they'd taught him that at school -- that it was wrong.

Charlie knew it was supposed to be wrong. He just couldn't _feel_ it. Apparently, Bill could.

So Charlie took to crawling into Bill's bed late at night instead. He held _Bill_ down and touched his naked penis -- until Bill would flip them, roll on top, and take over.

And then Charlie would, once again, fly.

 

 

 

His parents were fighting again. The fights weren't terribly hostile, but it was bad enough that Charlie decided to set the table without being told. He wrangled the twins outside to play so that their screaming didn't compete with and even perpetuate Mum and Dad's shouting. While Bill played a board game with Ron on the living room floor, Charlie handled everything else, and his mum yelled that they needed a new room built while his dad, trying to keep calm, suggested that they just needed to rework the ones they already had.

Pots were banged down, and Charlie kept the cutlery out of his mother's hands as the argument went on. Being home from Hogwarts had its benefits, and then it also had its drawbacks. Finding space with all of them home was one of those, such that Charlie wondered if he should have stayed back and hung out with his friends over the holiday instead.

But Bill had come home. That had been the deciding factor. Where Bill went, Charlie often followed, even now that they were hardly children anymore. Bill certainly wasn't. Bill was thirteen and tall and his voice was already threatening to change. He was growing his hair long.

Charlie was glad he'd come home, even if it meant his parents fighting while he chopped the turnips.

It was Ginny's crying that stopped their back and forth finally, and they all sat down to dinner.

"Well," Dad said jovially. _As if he's fooling anyone but Ron,_ Charlie thought. "We've decided that little Ginny needs her own space."

Charlie glanced up at Bill across the table, and their eyes met briefly. Charlie stuffed his mouth full of mashed potato and dropped his eyes to his plate.

With what sounded like barely restrained anger, covered over with forced gaiety, Mum began handing out room assignments. Ron would share with the twins, Charlie would room with Percy, and Bill would have his own space up at the top of the house.

Charlie was old enough to know what this whole business was really about: his mum and dad wanted to shag in peace, without a toddler in the room sleeping nearby. It would have been amusing if it didn't inconvenience Charlie so much. He took a drink of pumpkin juice and once again found Bill's eyes to gauge how he'd received the news.

He was inscrutable -- to anyone but Charlie. Charlie saw it, though. That same frustrated look he'd witnessed across the Gryffindor table at school. The same one he felt in his bones, because it had been months. They had their own lives at school -- their own friends and classes, their joys and catastrophes that had little to do with one another.

But at home, they'd always shared a room.

They'd always had each other.

"Does that suit you, Charlie?" his mum asked, and Charlie shook himself. He nodded, forking a large bite of shepherd's pie into his mouth and avoiding Bill's scrutiny.

He didn't look at Bill once for the rest of the evening, in fact.

But that night, Charlie snuck out of his room with Percy and crept up to Bill's. He opened the door, and it was dark, but he could make out the shape of Bill's body on the bed. Charlie blinked, his eyes trying to adjust.

"Are you asleep?" Charlie whispered.

That's when he heard the hitched breath, when he saw the movement of his brother stroking himself. Charlie blinked again and saw that Bill was naked -- and he was pulling on his hard penis.

Bill was waiting for him.

Charlie said nothing more. He stripped off his pajamas and crawled into bed with his brother. They lay on their sides, touching each other, pumping their hips almost in synchrony. It had been so long.

Then Bill whispered close in Charlie's ear, "Put it in your mouth."

It was shocking. Not because Charlie didn't want to do it but because he _did_. He'd thought about it over and over again during the past year, not even knowing why he wanted to or if people ever did such a thing. And here was Bill asking him to do the very thing he'd been trying not to think of.

Charlie nodded. He scooted down the bed, the sheets rustling around their bodies. Charlie ducked under the covers, nestled his face in Bill's crotch, and breathed him in. His heart was hammering so quickly, it almost hurt.

Bill groaned and fit his penis between Charlie's opening lips. Bill had a lot of hair down there now, and it tickled Charlie's face. Charlie sucked on the end of his brother's thick penis, and it was just a little salty and bitter but mostly soft and smooth, the skin almost like cream in his mouth.

It happened quickly, and it was so surprising that Charlie didn't think -- he just swallowed it, this bitter hot explosion of warmth on his tongue.

Bill bucked and sighed, "Charlie. God, Charlie, yes..." His hands slid into Charlie's hair and held him. He'd never said Charlie's name during it before.

When Charlie finished swallowing Bill's semen, Bill pushed him back, pulled him up, and then slunk down himself, rolling Charlie onto his back and taking Charlie's penis in his mouth, too. Charlie's eyes rolled back in his head. He felt like he _wanted_ to explode, but he just couldn't.

Bill lifted his mouth off of Charlie's still-throbbing penis to whisper, "Don't worry. Give it another year or two and your cock will do what mine did." Then he'd stroked it in his hand and licked the head until he had Charlie shaking and convulsing, crying out and twisting the covers in pleasure.

_Cock._

Bill had said cock. He'd called what Charlie had a cock. Charlie lifted the sheet and looked down at it in awe, going soft again in his brother's hand while Bill smiled up at him.

 

 

 

Charlie got really good at sucking cock. By the time he was fifteen, he'd had a few more than his brother's, and he realized he really was quite talented.

By sixteen he also realized he rather liked being on the receiving end, too. He liked it a lot. He persuaded quite a few reluctant but yearning Gryffindors, a couple Ravenclaws, and even a Slytherin once to get him off in their mouths between classes, after Quidditch practice (it helped to be the star), in the middle of the night... Charlie had a thing for getting his cock sucked, and he'd found no shortage of young wizards willing to do it to him.

But when they were at the Burrow, it was Bill's cock in his mouth first. Always. It was Charlie falling to his knees for it. It was home.

Charlie had sucked Bill off that morning before any of the rest of the family was awake. Charlie had finished him off, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and when Bill had gotten his breath back, they went down to help with Easter breakfast.

But the worst fight they ever had came that afternoon, and it just so happened to be about sucking cock. It happened while they were out walking along the creek before dinner looking for wild plants for their mum.

"You know, Trivia Fleming did it," Bill told him.

Charlie was four paces behind, his eyes downcast to watch for wild asparagus. "Did what?"

"Sucked it."

"Sucked who?"

"Me, you idiot."

Charlie stopped dead in his tracks, his whole body seizing up with an incomprehensible pain. He felt his mouth twisting into an ugly shape. Without thought, he bent down, retrieved a large handful of cold dirt and threw it at his brother.

Bill dodged. "What the bloody hell?"

"She's a slag!" Charlie shouted. "She's a ruddy old slag, Bill!" He didn't know where it was coming from, and he felt like a supreme git for using a word his mum would have wept to hear him use against a girl. Charlie wanted to weep. Instead he firmed his jaw as his brother came at him and tackled him to the ground.

"Take it back!" He wrestled Charlie onto his back. "Take it back, you ponce."

"No," Charlie seethed. "Get off me! Get off!"

But Bill pinned Charlie's arms over his head then, and Charlie didn't even know what happened; he just went weak and slack. He felt his entire body give in to it. Bill's eyes flashed above him, and his weight was warm and heavy, and Charlie let out all his breath, going erect in seconds, and he relaxed into his brother's anger.

"You've let every boy in your year get his mouth on you," Bill gritted out. "What's the bloody difference?"

Charlie blinked, his lips parting, the feel of Bill's hard cock against his hip making him want beyond all reason. He said nothing. He just arched beneath his brother and opened his legs to cradle Bill's pelvis.

Bill sipped in his breath. But then he rocked into Charlie. And Charlie groaned.

It was daylight. They were expected back. But Bill pulled his wand and Vanished Charlie's clothes -- just Charlie's. Charlie gasped as the cool air hit him everywhere Bill wasn't pinning him down. Bill opened his trousers and got his cock out.

They'd never done this, and here they were about to in the middle of the forest not two hundred yards from the house.

Charlie lifted his legs.

Bill slicked him with a charm, but he spared him no other considerations. He lined himself up, staring down into Charlie's eyes, an intense frown on his own face, and he started to push himself inside.

They both groaned as he pumped his way in, moving Charlie's body against the hard ground. Charlie gripped tight to Bill's back, scratching him. "Bill! Bill..." he gasped. Bill kept going until he was so deep Charlie thought he'd rip in two.

Then Bill fucked him. Charlie wrapped his arms and legs around his brother and rode it until it felt good, until he was once again as hard as he'd ever been, then he moved, writhing against it, Bill's cock stroking his insides until he thought he'd scream with the horrible pleasure.

Bill stopped him with a kiss.

They'd never kissed before.

And now Bill's cock was inside his arse -- his tongue was inside his mouth -- and Charlie came so hard he saw only the white shock of sun against the thin skin of his eyelids as he trembled.

Bill wasn't far behind. He rutted into him a few more seconds and then spilled his semen deep in Charlie's body, breaking the wet kiss and whining against his ear like a wounded animal.

Charlie held him through it. He whispered that it was all right. He stroked Bill's clammy back, his long hair out of his face; Charlie kissed his neck and his jaw while Bill took uneven thrusts inside his body until he'd emptied himself completely.

They lay like that, panting, until they started to get cold and Bill's cock slipped out of him.

"What'd you do with my clothes, you bastard?" Charlie smiled. He didn't give a shit about Trivia Fleming anymore. Bill had fucked him. Bill had fucked him down into the earth and claimed him.

Bill quirked a rather shy smile back at him and stood, tucking himself away. Then he just held his wand, staring down at Charlie lying there naked on the ground. Bill stared at him a long time, frowning. So many secrets passed over his eyes, like fast, brutal storms. Then he dressed Charlie again with a wave of his wand and said, "We'd better get back."

He walked away from Charlie along the path back toward the house without one backward glance.

Charlie lay on the ground for long minutes, staring at the clouds that passed over him.

 

 

To his mother's dismay, Charlie tried to grow his hair as long as Bill's.

"I can only tolerate two heads of that much hair -- Bill's and Ginny's! Now come here."

She was always cutting his hair. He'd let it grow while he was at school, and then he'd get home and she'd cut it off.

He'd received howlers from her over his hair alone. He really had no idea why she was so intent on him having short hair when Bill was allowed to grow his past his shoulders -- which he'd done.

"She's afraid of you," Bill told him after she'd shortened it for Ron's thirteenth birthday party, insisting for some insane reason that the length of Charlie's hair alone could ruin the day for everyone and that since Bill was home from Egypt and Percy was likely to ace his NEWTS, some decorum needed to be upheld.

"What do you mean, she's afraid of me?" They were out in the garden, watching the sun set and taking their sweet time fetching the vegetables she'd asked them to fetch.

Bill grabbed up a bunch of carrots with a grunt, kicking away a gnome at the same time. "She knows I work in a bank, Charlie. She knows _you_ will most certainly _not_."

"And this has to do with my hair how?"

Bill quirked a smile at him. "She thinks she can keep you safe."

"She's bloody mental," Charlie answered.

"Yes, but she's got a point."

"Don't you start on my hair, too, you hypocrite--"

They were behind the shack now, shielded from the eyes of the house, and Bill turned on him quickly and, with his dirty hands, pressed Charlie back against the outer wall of the shack. He ran his fingers into Charlie's short hair. He kissed his lips softly, tonguing them open. Then he whispered against them, "I want to keep you safe, too."

Charlie rested his hands on his brother's slim hips. He pulsed his own hips against Bill's and smiled. "I know how to handle myself."

Bill was not in the mood for flirting apparently. "See that you do," he said, backing off and turning back to the garden in the dying light.

Charlie's lips tingled. He decided never to give his mother shite for wanting his hair short again.

 

 

"You're doing it wrong."

Charlie slanted a look at his brother leaned in the bathroom doorway. "I'm twenty; I know how to shave."

"Obviously, you don't."

"Well, then I'm honored that you've come all the way back from Egypt to judge me, now aren't I?"

"Bloody right," Bill said, smiling and pushing away from the door.

It had been a year since they'd seen one another. A hard year of learning to rehabilitate and train dragons, of harsh Romanian winds, isolation, and difficult physical work like Charlie had never done before. More than once, he'd thought maybe everyone had been right -- that he should have gone into Quidditch instead.

Everyone except Bill. Bill had always wanted whatever Charlie wanted for himself.

Bill came up behind him and slipped the razor out of his hand. Charlie watched him in the mirror -- watched him dip the razor in the warm water, felt his short breath on the side of his neck. Then Bill had Charlie lean back against him. Charlie felt that old feeling slide back in -- the submission, the easy, blissful melting. He leaned back against his brother and closed his eyes as Bill drew the blade down his face tenderly.

His breath puffed Charlie's hair, and his touch was so gentle and sure. One arm held Charlie in place, wrapped around him, palm pressed to his chest, while the other hand shaved him, taking longer strokes than Charlie ever did and going slower.

"There," Bill finally said when he'd finished. His voice was changed, deeper and rough.

Charlie felt the entire year of loneliness built up inside him and he turned in his brother's arms, ran his hands up into Bill's long hair, and kissed him. He kissed him hard, tilting their heads to find the right angle, and Bill walked him back into the lip of the sink. Their hands went to one another's trousers, yanking down, no longer gentle in the least and long ago done with permissions.

Bill spun him and bent him over. Charlie was face to face with himself in the mirror, still marked by shaving cream. One glance up showed him his brother preparing to fuck him.

He entered Charlie quickly with a deep groan, his head falling back. Charlie pushed back against him. It was hard and wordless. Bill jerked back on his hips, and Charlie watched his face, seeing it transform with utter pleasure.

Then Bill opened his eyes and looked at their reflection, at Charlie's face. And that's when he said it, when he whispered it -- "Little brother..." -- and they both came.

 

 

 

"You're going to marry her?"

Bill nodded.

Charlie shrugged the parka up against his neck tighter. The winds had shifted to the south and brought with them arctic snow. He'd need to put extra magicks up on the paddock tonight.

"And you came all the way here to tell me?"

"I thought it was the right thing to do," Bill told him, shivering.

"Well, let's go inside then."

They sat at Charlie's kitchen table in the little cabin and opened the firewhiskey.

"She pretty?"

"Veela," Bill said as though that were enough. Charlie supposed it was. He nodded.

"So there's a chance you could just be in a trance of some kind then."

Bill smiled. "I suppose that's possible."

"Thank Merlin," Charlie joked. But it wasn't funny.

He got up and went to look out the window. "Got a Welsh with a bad wing. Need to keep her warm through this mess." He waved his hand at the weather.

Bill walked up behind him. "Charlie..." he said gently, his hands coming down on Charlie's shoulders from behind.

Charlie made a half-hearted attempt to shake him off, and when he didn't succeed, he stopped trying. "What do you want? My blessing?"

"Christ, no, Charlie," Bill replied. A tear fell down Charlie's face. The hurt in his Bill's voice made Charlie want to let go of the tight control he was exerting on himself. He wanted to turn and weep openly in his big brother's arms.

"What then, you bastard?"

Bill pressed his lips to Charlie's head. "Your forgiveness."

"You love her," Charlie told him. "There's nothing to forgive."

Bill turned him around and wiped the quiet tears from Charlie's face. "No one will ever be you."

Bill helped him tend to his dragons that night. He helped him build a fire. They made dinner together and left the cleaning till morning.

They made love on the floor by the hearth, the heat singing along their skin, their slow, sinuous movements reflected in long shadows across the ceiling.

 

~

 

Charlie was almost finished shaving when the voice rumbled from the doorway.

"You're still doing it wrong."

"Says you," Charlie said before he turned to his brother.

The scar was as bad as everyone had warned him about, but Charlie didn't flinch. He'd seen worse on the mountain. He made a considering face. "It's roguish," he replied. "Not nearly as pitiable as George."

"Glad you think so." Then he pointed at Charlie's nearly-naked head. "How'd that happen?"

"How do you think?" Charlie ran his hand over it again.

Something flickered in his brother's eyes and then subdued. "I like it," he said simply.

Charlie swallowed. He turned back to the sink and began washing the shaving cream from his face. "You ready for this?"

"No," Bill admitted. "Want to catch the next train to Dublin, find a pub, and get bloody drunk?"

Charlie smiled. "Sure. But you're buying."

Bill came away from the door, and Charlie's pulse sped up.

"If it wasn't for everything else..." Bill began. Everything else being Harry Potter, being Voldemort, being impending war.

"But there is everything else," Charlie reminded him. "And there's Fleur."

"And there's Thadeus," Bill replied. Charlie glanced at him, and he wore a fond smile. Charlie felt the blush steal across his tingling cheeks and down his neck. Bill asked him, "Why couldn't he come?"

"He's coordinating a fleet to move on Albania if there's a sighting," Charlie explained. _Plus, I didn't want him to._

"Important work," Bill admitted. "Please give him my regards when you go home."

Charlie nodded. Bill liked Thadeus. Everyone did. More than they'd liked Fleur it seemed. Charlie felt both grateful and guilty about that.

"Will you be coming down soon? They want to have Harry's party today, you know."

"Yeah. I know. I'll be down."

"All right." Bill lingered for a moment, then he nodded at Charlie. "See you down there."

Charlie turned back to his reflection, rested his hands on the lip of the sink...the same very sink...and sighed.

 

 

 

Harry's party was...fine. Scrimgeour showed up, was a complete arse, and left. But the cake and presents were good.

Charlie couldn't get into it, though. He spent most of the party staring into space or wandering the garden, pretending to be interested in how the crocuses were coming along. He knew he shouldn't be such a pathetic sad sack. What had Charlie lost so far? Nothing. George's ear? Could he count that?

It felt like he was losing, though. Losing everything.

When night fell, he was all set to retire early. He actually wasn't quite sure how he was supposed to be expected to survive the next day much less do so gracefully even if that did make him the biggest ponce on the face of the earth. He'd need a good deal of sleep, and before that, a good deal of alcohol.

He grabbed up a bottle of Ogden's and started making his way to his room.

The voice came out of the darkness from the middle of the stairs. "Little brother."

Charlie turned with a gasp, nearly dropping the bottle. "Don't call me that," he said and began trudging up the stairs once more.

Bill's hand shot out and took his arm. "Wait." Then softer, "Wait, will you?"

Charlie looked at him.

"Come in here."

Charlie stood in a haze of indecision. "Where's your bride?"

Bill gulped. "Doing...I don't know...woman things with Mum."

Charlie raised an eyebrow. "Woman things?"

"Just shut it and get in here, would you?"

Charlie stopped breathing. Then he felt Bill's thumb brush along the skin of his forearm, raising the hairs there. Bill's eyes were imploring. It was a look he'd rarely seen from him. He took one step down the stairs. Then another.

And then Bill pulled him gently into the darkness.

He shut the door.

But before Bill could pin him to it, Charlie swept past him and strode into the middle of the room.

"I'm going to tell you something terrible, Charlie," Bill said.

Charlie turned to him. "Don't."

"I have to."

"Bill, goddamnit..."

"I'd lie to her. Charlie, I'd lie to her for you. To keep you. Do you understand that? I'd sooner lie to her than have you betray Thadeus, though. How cocked up is that? How fucking cocked up is that?"

"Very," Charlie admitted.

Bill moved close to him. "I don't want to lose you."

"It's already gone," Charlie told him, breaking silently. God, he shouldn't have come in here. He shouldn't have come at all.

"Please. Please, Charlie." His brother's hands touched him and began to roam. They went immediately up, over Charlie's bristled head. "God, please, Charlie, give me one more night with you."

Charlie had never seen his brother like this. Not in twenty-five years. Charlie's heart was breaking open, wondering if Bill had felt this way all along -- needed Charlie so much all along.

But it wasn't right. It didn't feel right like this. Charlie, in his frustration, goaded him. "Don't fucking beg me for what you've always felt free to take, Bill."

Bill inhaled as though he'd been slapped -- then he shoved Charlie hard against the wall and kissed him brutally. His tongue was hot, went deep, and Charlie, finally feeling his brother's body pinning him to something, hard and strong, went quiescent against him, his eyes fluttering closed on the perfect peace of it, the unmatched perfection.

Charlie put up the privacy spells as Bill began ripping his clothes off. No magic. Just hands like claws tearing his shirt from his body. Just Bill's hot breath on his skin, his mouth attaching to a nipple, teeth pulling. Then he sank down, licking and biting down Charlie's stomach, opening his trousers, pulling out his erection.

"Bill..." Charlie whined. He banged his head back against the door as Bill took him into his mouth and laved all the way down to the root of his cock, lodging it in his throat in one go. "Oh _God_!" Bill started bobbing his head on Charlie's cock.

It had been years since Bill had done this. Years. Charlie's legs immediately began to shake. "No," he whispered. He touched Bill's hollowed cheek. "Bill, no... C'mere."

Bill popped off of his cock wetly and stood. "You don't want me to?"

"I just want you inside me," Charlie admitted.

Bill exhaled, took his hand, and led him over to the bed, but it was Charlie who pushed Bill down onto it.

"Lie back," he instructed, and Bill did so.

Tomorrow would be the wedding. Tomorrow he'd stand by his brother's side and watch him loving someone else -- just like Charlie himself loved someone else. All of this would happen tomorrow. It wasn't happening tonight. Charlie could fool himself into thinking that just fine. When Bill stripped his own trousers off and laid there ready, his hard cock fallen heavy against his hip, it was easy to let tomorrow drift very far away.

Charlie climbed on top of him and straddled his hips. He took Bill's long cock in his hand and aimed it while Bill murmured a charm to slick him up. Charlie leaned forward and brought the cock to the pucker of his anus, and when he did, Bill's hands slid over his head.

"It's beautiful, Charlie," he breathed.

Charlie smiled and sank down on his brother's cock until he was impaled completely.

They both groaned as Charlie settled, squirming his hips and getting another half inch inside.

"Fuck, brother," Bill gritted out, and it made Charlie's flagging cock spring back up. "Get down here."

Charlie obeyed, throbbing, and leaned forward so that Bill could run his hands over his head. Charlie started shoving himself down on Bill's cock, filling himself up, shivering as Bill's hands ghosted over his scalp over and over again. He closed his eyes and moved on top of Bill. He felt one of Bill's hands drop to his hip while the other just kept touching what was left of his hair.

"You really like it, don't you?" Charlie smiled with his eyes closed.

"I fucking love it," Bill said roughly.

Charlie opened his eyes, slowed his undulations, and leaned down enough to press his lips to Bill's. They kissed, Bill pulsing up into him, Charlie slamming down. And then Bill gasped into his mouth, grabbed his hips hard, pumped up five hard times, and then came, cursing and groaning.

Charlie rode him, the warm spunk leaking out and down Bill's cock. Charlie leaned back and seated himself all the way and just rolled his hips. It felt impossibly good.

"Bill..." he breathed. "Please make me come."

Charlie kept him deep, and Bill stayed hard. He took Charlie's cock in his hand, and just like when they were kids, he pet it, slow and sweet.

"Oh God, Bill," Charlie cried. The combination of how full his arse was and the memories Bill's soft touching evoked was more than enough. Charlie opened his mouth, threw his head back, and came on his brother's stomach.

The physical bliss swept over him even as the reality of what it all meant squeezed Charlie's heart. This was their last time. This had to be their last time. And he didn't think he could do it. He thought about lying to them, hiding it from Fleur and Thadeus, and it was like ice down his spine. But when he thought of not doing this. _This_ \-- his brother like a part of him -- Charlie thought that could be far, far worse. Like dying.

Charlie opened his eyes, stilled his movements, and looked down at Bill. He looked like Charlie felt, tears shining in his blue eyes.

"I love you," Charlie told him. He'd never said it like this. Not like this.

"I love you," Bill answered.

Then, because it would hurt too much to stay and lay against him, to feel his heart beating and his breath against Charlie's skin, Charlie eased off Bill's cock and stood. He had a life to go back to, a lover. This pain would recede. It would. Still, right now, it didn't feel like it. The pain rose up in him like grief. He turned his back and dressed, grabbing up his wand and his Ogden's.

"Where are you going with that?" Bill asked.

"To my room."

"You don't have one. You're staying in here with me."

"Oh _fuck_ ," Charlie hissed.

He heard Bill sit up in the bed behind him. "Care to come outside with me instead? Have a few pulls under the stars?"

"Won't Fleur want your attention soon?" Charlie turned to him to find him already dressed and normal looking.

Bill scoffed. "Now that Mum adores her, they're going to stay up late giggling." He took a long breath. "You're my brother," he said simply. He looked hard into Charlie's eyes. "You'll always be mine."

Charlie shivered at his words, unsure exactly what they meant for the future, only really knowing that they felt right -- they always had -- throughout his whole body. He felt his universe settle into a bittersweet groove, not under his control but not rent from itself either.

"I'd like that," he said. "The stars."

Bill smiled. "Meet you under Orion," he said. Then he Apparated away.


End file.
